‘Bad’ Legal Advice and the Death Penalty December 8, 2007
Posted by Idta in : Criminal Law, Death Penalty , trackback
Does this case suggest a lawyer must advise a client to plead to a life sentence rather than risk a death sentence?
It was the defense lawyer’s misfortune to receive the … case at a moment when death-penalty law was in a particularly high state of flux. Just six weeks [earlier], the Ninth Circuit had invalidated Arizona’s death penalty law on the ground that it gave too much fact-finding power to the judge. Since Idaho’s death penalty law was indistinguishable, and Idaho is also in the Ninth Circuit, Mr. Wellman reasoned that even if his client received a death sentence, it would be overturned on appeal.
However, Mr. Wellman was unaware that four days before the plea bargain was offered, the Arizona Supreme Court, in a separate case, had rejected the Ninth Circuit’s reasoning and had upheld the Arizona death penalty statute.
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